The first Jujitsu club was formed in 1100 in Japan, though the art had been around a lot longer this was the first structured method of teaching, Jujitsu is a very old martial art.

Jujitsu was a self defence martial art taught to the Samurai for cases in which they would be without their Katana, (Samurai sword) Jujitsu was a professional art meaning that only the noble and warrior classes were allowed to learn it.

Through the 1100s Jujitsu grew and developed until the 1300s when a period of unrest in Japan started known as the Onin War, also called the age of the country at war, The shogunate of Japan had no heir, so gave his brother the sucessorship, almost immediately after he had a son, so he revoked the sucessorship and thus started a civil war.

The Emperor proved too weak to control the warlords and the battle for clan supremacy started which continued for hundreds of years, during this time Jujitsu developed and evolved into an art that attacked the weaknesses of men in armour,  there were not as many kicks or punches such as in the Korean and Chinese martial arts, instead those developed were designed to target weak spots and have the most effect, it was based around throws breaks and locks, it would not do a lot of good punching a man in armour.

After the war Jujitsu faded with the samurai after the invention of the gun, it took 6 years to fully train a Jujitsu capable swordsman and 2 years for a gun (Hojutsu) the clans with guns became the prominent ones, and Hojutsu became the greater teaching, this led to a decline from 6000 Jujitsu schools at its peak during the Onin war.

Jujitsu grew again under a man named Jigoro Kano, famous today for starting Judo, though back in the 1800s there was no difference between the two, it became popular as the Japanese wanted it’s police force trained and held competitions, of which Jigoro Kano’s Jujitsu won 8 years running until a style called Fensen Ryu appeared which in a 1-1 fight beat Kano’s Jujitsu for the first time, Fensen is important because it was a ground fighting only art that was carried with a huge wave of Japanese migration to Brazil after WWII, they introduced Fensen to the Brazilian’s who perfected it and we more commonly call it Brazilian Jujitsu, in fact it’s also Japanese, but it’s famous for the Brazilians who developed and expounded it and in recent years used it on the world stage in the increasingly popular US style cage fights.

In 1898 a man called EW Barton Wright bought Kano’s Jujitsu to the UK for the 1st time the first school opening in 1901 and has since flourished.

Our association –  Torii Jujitsu is a derivative from Shu-ho’s whose patron is the 16th Soke in his family line, a tradition leading back over 400 years, so we, like a lot of Kano’s descendants Jujitsu and Judo clubs have a lot of history.

Though Jujitsu may not be a household name, it led to well known forms such as modern Judo, Karate and Aikido so we have a blend of all 3 with some extra’s, though it will not be recognisable to all practitioners as these arts have developed themselves away from the mother form of Jujitsu. There are similarities, we have the throws of Judo, the balance removal of Aikido, (though Aikido teaches balance without violence) and the powerful strikes from Karate. 

You may have noticed there are many different ways of spelling Jujitsu- A JITsu is a Dojo taught martial art that the noble and warrior classes were taught, a JUTsu was the unprofessional street version that the peasantry learnt as a self defence, and so can have some harsher versions of the throws we practice, but fundamentally we are all the same.